Post by Robert Waller on Dec 1, 2020 12:46:17 GMT
During the 1997 general election campaign I was invited to give some talks based on psephology and opinion polling by a friend who was standing for Parliament there. (As it happens I also knew the sitting member, but he did not ask …). In the Conservative party headquarters I was shown a map of the constituency, and happened to notice a large scrawl which covered a significant part of what the Americans would call downtown Grimsby, just inland from the docks. It appeared to read S.H.I.T. I could not judge and was too polite to enquire whether this was referring to the standard of the housing there or to Tory chances of electoral joy – or quite possibly both. In any case, Labour held the seat that year by a very comfortable margin of over 16,000 votes. However, even though in some respects Grimsby still lives up to its name, the situation had massively changed by 2019 – when the Conservatives won the seat for the first time since 1935, and with a majority of over 7,000.
The reason for this transformation demands explanation.
Situated on the southern bank of the broad estuary of the River Humber, Grimsby could claim to be the port for the world’s largest fishing industry as recently as the mid 1950s, but only a handful of actual trawlers remain compared with over 400 in its heyday. It is still a centre of fish processing (for example Findus UK) but most of the raw material arrives overland down the M180 or in containers from Iceland. The destruction of fishing is blamed by many Grimbarians on the EU Common Fisheries Policy, and this constituency has always been a hotbed of Euroscepticism. In the 2015 general election the UKIP, in the form of 2010 Conservative candidate Victoria Ayling, polled 25% and over 8,000 votes nearly finishing in second place. Great Grimsby was estimated to vote over 71% to leave the EU in 2016. It was no surprise the in the ‘get Brexit done’ election of December 2019, there was a 14.7% swing against the Labour MP Melanie Onn, and Grimsby joined other gritty northern working class towns in returning a Conservative with a startlingly large majority.
This seems superficially more surprising when one considers that Grimsby did use to have a record of exceptional loyalty to Labour. It was for 18 years from 1959 the constituency of one of their most prominent theorists, Anthony Crosland. In the April 1977 by-election caused by Crosland’s sudden death, the TV current affairs personality and former historian Austin Mitchell held the seat, on the same day as Labour were ousted by a 21% swing at Ashfield, Notts. In the 1979 General Election Mitchell increased his majority to over 6,000 – just about as large as Crosland had enjoyed in 1974, even at a time when Mrs Thatcher won the first of her three general election triumphs. In 1983 Grimsby did not fall to the Tory landslide. Then in 1987 Mitchell benefited from one of Labour’s very best showings in England – a swing of nearly 8% from the Conservatives, and an increase in majority from 731 to 8,784 – and his even before the three Blair triumphs. Labour’s weakening didn’t really surface until 2010, when Mitchell’s vote slumped by over 14%, one of the party’s worst performances anywhere, and he scraped in by only 714 votes, or only 32.7% - exactly the same share, as it happens, as his successor Melanie Onn received at the end of the decade when she lost to the Conservative Lia Nici.
Not all of the Great Grimsby constituency is, well, grim. The central wards of East Marsh and West Marsh are the most deprived, a mixture of a grid of industrial and ex-industrial areas, terraced streets, semi-cleared residential land, and tower blocks. The traditional shopping area around Freeman Street has for many years suffered from urban blight. O
However, while South ward is basically a 1950s council estate, there is also in Park ward a very good, if small, established residential area round the People’s Park.
Scartho is a long established Conservative inclined peripheral owner occupied area. In May 2019, though, as well as winning Scartho and Park, the Tories took the north western working class ward of Freshney (based on Great Coates), as they had in 2018, and Yarborough too (named after a local aristocrat, the Earl of Yarborough, but essentially comprising the Little Coates neighbourhood). With the Liberal Democrats easily retaining the inner East Marsh, where they have had a very successful ‘community politics’ operation for some years, Labour have been reduced to holding a minority of the wards even in the Great Grimsby parts of the North East Lincolnshire authority – in fact, UKIP managed a rare gain in the formerly solid South ward in May 2019, a harbinger of what was to come at the end of that year.
It is possible that Grimsby’s long Labour loyalty might re-emerge after the Brexit issue has settled down, but it is also possible that it may be involved in a powerful secular trend away from them. In any case, as with others seats like Mansfield, Bassetlaw and Cannock, the Conservatives are now so far ahead that it looks very unlikely that any recovery could recapture it in a single election. Referring back to the beginning of this piece, here as in some other traditional strongholds, it is Labour who appear to be in the proverbial …
2011 Census
Owner-occupied 60.4% 468/650
Private rented 19.6% 131/650
Social rented 18.5% 255/650
White 97.1% 219/650
Black 0.3% 474/650
Asian 1.5% 410/650
Managerial & professional 18.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 39.3%
Degree level 14.5% 634/650
No qualifications 31.2% 70/650
Students 7.2% 272/650
Age 65+ 15.5% 422/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 58.2% 423/573
Private rented 25.2% 107/573
Social rented 16.6% 231/573
White 95.7%
Black 0.7%
Asian 1.7%
Managerial & professional 19.6% 559/573
Routine & Semi-routine 38.0% 1/573
Degree level 19.9% 566/573
No qualifications 25.9% 39/573
General election 2019: Great Grimsby
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Lia Nici 18,150 54.9 +12.7
Labour Melanie Onn 10,819 32.7 −16.7
Brexit Party Christopher Barker 2,378 7.2 N/A
Liberal Democrats Ian Barfield 1,070 3.2 +0.5
Green Loyd Emmerson 514 1.6 N/A
Independent Nigel Winn 156 0.5 N/A
C Majority 7,331 22.2 N/A
Turnout 33,087 57.7 −3.7
Conservative gain from Labour Swing +14.7
The reason for this transformation demands explanation.
Situated on the southern bank of the broad estuary of the River Humber, Grimsby could claim to be the port for the world’s largest fishing industry as recently as the mid 1950s, but only a handful of actual trawlers remain compared with over 400 in its heyday. It is still a centre of fish processing (for example Findus UK) but most of the raw material arrives overland down the M180 or in containers from Iceland. The destruction of fishing is blamed by many Grimbarians on the EU Common Fisheries Policy, and this constituency has always been a hotbed of Euroscepticism. In the 2015 general election the UKIP, in the form of 2010 Conservative candidate Victoria Ayling, polled 25% and over 8,000 votes nearly finishing in second place. Great Grimsby was estimated to vote over 71% to leave the EU in 2016. It was no surprise the in the ‘get Brexit done’ election of December 2019, there was a 14.7% swing against the Labour MP Melanie Onn, and Grimsby joined other gritty northern working class towns in returning a Conservative with a startlingly large majority.
This seems superficially more surprising when one considers that Grimsby did use to have a record of exceptional loyalty to Labour. It was for 18 years from 1959 the constituency of one of their most prominent theorists, Anthony Crosland. In the April 1977 by-election caused by Crosland’s sudden death, the TV current affairs personality and former historian Austin Mitchell held the seat, on the same day as Labour were ousted by a 21% swing at Ashfield, Notts. In the 1979 General Election Mitchell increased his majority to over 6,000 – just about as large as Crosland had enjoyed in 1974, even at a time when Mrs Thatcher won the first of her three general election triumphs. In 1983 Grimsby did not fall to the Tory landslide. Then in 1987 Mitchell benefited from one of Labour’s very best showings in England – a swing of nearly 8% from the Conservatives, and an increase in majority from 731 to 8,784 – and his even before the three Blair triumphs. Labour’s weakening didn’t really surface until 2010, when Mitchell’s vote slumped by over 14%, one of the party’s worst performances anywhere, and he scraped in by only 714 votes, or only 32.7% - exactly the same share, as it happens, as his successor Melanie Onn received at the end of the decade when she lost to the Conservative Lia Nici.
Not all of the Great Grimsby constituency is, well, grim. The central wards of East Marsh and West Marsh are the most deprived, a mixture of a grid of industrial and ex-industrial areas, terraced streets, semi-cleared residential land, and tower blocks. The traditional shopping area around Freeman Street has for many years suffered from urban blight. O
However, while South ward is basically a 1950s council estate, there is also in Park ward a very good, if small, established residential area round the People’s Park.
Scartho is a long established Conservative inclined peripheral owner occupied area. In May 2019, though, as well as winning Scartho and Park, the Tories took the north western working class ward of Freshney (based on Great Coates), as they had in 2018, and Yarborough too (named after a local aristocrat, the Earl of Yarborough, but essentially comprising the Little Coates neighbourhood). With the Liberal Democrats easily retaining the inner East Marsh, where they have had a very successful ‘community politics’ operation for some years, Labour have been reduced to holding a minority of the wards even in the Great Grimsby parts of the North East Lincolnshire authority – in fact, UKIP managed a rare gain in the formerly solid South ward in May 2019, a harbinger of what was to come at the end of that year.
It is possible that Grimsby’s long Labour loyalty might re-emerge after the Brexit issue has settled down, but it is also possible that it may be involved in a powerful secular trend away from them. In any case, as with others seats like Mansfield, Bassetlaw and Cannock, the Conservatives are now so far ahead that it looks very unlikely that any recovery could recapture it in a single election. Referring back to the beginning of this piece, here as in some other traditional strongholds, it is Labour who appear to be in the proverbial …
2011 Census
Owner-occupied 60.4% 468/650
Private rented 19.6% 131/650
Social rented 18.5% 255/650
White 97.1% 219/650
Black 0.3% 474/650
Asian 1.5% 410/650
Managerial & professional 18.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 39.3%
Degree level 14.5% 634/650
No qualifications 31.2% 70/650
Students 7.2% 272/650
Age 65+ 15.5% 422/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 58.2% 423/573
Private rented 25.2% 107/573
Social rented 16.6% 231/573
White 95.7%
Black 0.7%
Asian 1.7%
Managerial & professional 19.6% 559/573
Routine & Semi-routine 38.0% 1/573
Degree level 19.9% 566/573
No qualifications 25.9% 39/573
General election 2019: Great Grimsby
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Lia Nici 18,150 54.9 +12.7
Labour Melanie Onn 10,819 32.7 −16.7
Brexit Party Christopher Barker 2,378 7.2 N/A
Liberal Democrats Ian Barfield 1,070 3.2 +0.5
Green Loyd Emmerson 514 1.6 N/A
Independent Nigel Winn 156 0.5 N/A
C Majority 7,331 22.2 N/A
Turnout 33,087 57.7 −3.7
Conservative gain from Labour Swing +14.7
